If you’re watching the NFL Scouting Combine and wondering if that burgeoning crush you’re developing is a player who fits the Buffalo Bills’ archetypes, then this series is written especially for you. This series will examine the Bills’ combine measurables by position during the McBeane Era. Previously, we laid out the format and the statistical composition in discussing interior offensive line, and you can find that here. For the rest of the series, there will be less of the math class talk, and a little more description of the types of players who exemplify those traits.
Components
The chart below details the average scores for that year’s group of rostered players. “Rostered” is important because these are not just drafted players, but the accumulation of all the players who spend time on the roster, regardless of acquisition method. The combine columns are items you are already familiar with if you clicked on this article, and the last column you likely already know too, Relative Athletic Score (RAS). RAS was created by Kent Lee Platte (@MathBomb on Twitter), and it combines a player’s combine results and uses position-specific formulas to convert them into a score that can be compared between athletes. RAS uses a scale of 1-10, and a score of 10 is considered perfect.
The Range lines are the far extremes, plus or minus, that the Bills have rostered. For WRs, the historical average for their 40 times was 4.50. The fastest combine 40 time the Bills have ever rostered was 4.31 (Deonte Thompson, 2017-18), while the slowest was 4.79 (Cam Phillips, 2018). You get the idea.
The “SD” lines might be strange if you’re unfamiliar with standard deviation and/or didn’t read the first article, but the link above will get you there.
The WR Chart
To offer an idea of what some of the outliers look like, here the far ends of of some key WR measurables:
- 40 – Fastest, Deonte Thompson (4.31); Slowest, Cam Phillips (4.79)
- 20 Yd Shuttle – Fastest, Jeremy Kerley (3.99): Slowest, Gabe Davis (4.59)
- Vertical – Highest, Emmanuel Sanders (39.5): Lowest, Cam Phillips (29.5)
One of the players who most typifies the Bills’ archetypes was Andre Roberts. While he was slightly shorter, he otherwise comes close to many of the average measurables, meaning he resembles what the aggregate Bills’ WR is physically:
- LBS: 195
- Height: 71″
- Arm Length: 33.25
- Hand Size:9.5
- 40: 4.46
- 10 Yd Split: 1.52
- Vertical: 36
- Broad: 120
- 3 Cone:6.77
- 20 Yd Shuttle: 4.15
- Bench Press: 15
RAS for the Composite
The caveat remains throughout this series that prospects who are outside of the Bills’ athletic profile are not automatically expunged from the draft board. In fact, it might even be more telling when a player who doesn’t fit the profile is drafted because it means they like other aspects of the player’s game to move forward with acquiring him despite the fact that he didn’t fit what they usually look for.
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